Tuesday, October 21, 2014

The Monkey in the Middle of the Cosmo-Christic Revolution

I suppose a few more words about words are in order, since I don't have time to come up with a new subject.

Balthasar shares the Raccoon principle that "the true image of God lies in the reciprocity of man and woman" (to which I might add the baby; the tripartite family strikes me as the most adequate earthly icon of God).

In order to eliminate God -- or the vertical, if you like -- the left has succeeded in changing the plain meaning of man, woman, child, and marriage. Now, grace is a force multiplier. I frankly don't understand how a marriage can truly thrive in its absence. Seems a rather foolish and shortsighted thing to exclude it before one even embarks upon the project.

Odd that a complete nobody from nowhere would suggest that though the heavens and the earth may pass away, his words will not. This can only mean -- among other things -- that these words are both prior to and beyond existence: before Abraham was, I AM. This would also explain their peculiar power, in that they must be grounded in a different source. Thus his words possess an "incomprehensible, and yet evident, superiority over all things past and present" (ibid.). Which is why they persist.

The closest analogue would be poetry, which is also "powerful speech" -- or speech that draws part of its power from some extra-linguistic source. Note that this is not just a question of true-or-false in the conventional sense. Dávila has an aphorism to the effect that A work of art has, properly speaking, not meaning but power. Likewise the divine Word: there is meaning, yes, but it is a curious kind of meaning that has the power to perpetually deepen and surpass itself. (So much for being opposed to change!)

So words, if they are not rooted in vertical reality, are indeed like the light of dead stars. Balthasar writes that "Man and his language can certainly 'abstract,' but only as the tree draws its sap up from the earth." Thus, "every spreading of the upper leaves requires a deeper taking root below, otherwise the top breaks" and "everything has to start growing again from below."

Or above rather, since this must be that Upanishadic tree we hear so much about, its roots aloft, its convenient local branches down below. But without that nonlocal tree, what are words, really? Just piles of dead and fallen leaves swept into temporary piles by your crazy deconstructionist gardner.

Furthermore, the mad gardner assures us that the piles have no intrinsic meaning, but rather, are just masks for power. Which is a curious thing, because words, in forsaking their real power, partake of a another. But this latter is merely human power, or the fallen power of the tenured, or of the state, or of the slack-denying agents of the department of Fuck You, Pay Me.

Man is the bipedal creature with one foot in the horizontal, the other in the vertical dimension. The latter "reaches without a break from the spirit through the soul and the living body down into matter" (ibid.). Lately we've been discussing the radical discontinuities between matter and life, life and intellect, Petey and troll, etc. Importantly, the discontinuity is only from the horizontal perspective, or from the bottom-up. From the top-down it vanishes, as per the inverted tree discussed above.

If this were not the case, then there would be no accounting for how "matter blooms into spirit" -- which it is capable of doing because "prior" to this, spirit has taken root in matter. We put "prior" in scare quotes because this is obviously something that is outside time.

This is one of the key principles of the Cosmo-Christic revolution, IMHO -- that there is a simultaneous "corporalization of the spirit" and "spiritualization of the body, neither existing without the other" (ibid.).

In practical terms, this means that "If the body strove one-sidedly to become spirit, without allowing the spirit correspondingly to penetrate the body and become one with it, then man would be striving away from himself into a chimerical self-alienation" (ibid.).

Therefore, what God has joined together, let no man pick apart and destroy. Or at least don't elect such a man to high office, or let him near our children, or place him on the Supreme Court.

Within the vertical there are the Two Pneumatic Winds, which we like to symbolize with the up and down arrows (⇅). Yes, you can try to have one without the other, but it will always end badly.

"[I]n this dual movement man is suspended in the middle, since neither the Dionysian drive back to the material origins, nor the Promethean drive to pure spirit brings him nearer to himself, and the two tendencies cannot be made into one.

"As a product of the maternal earth and paternal heaven he has to turn his face toward both, without being able to see both at once. He cannot find his ground or take his rest in either, or both at once, but only in him who has created heaven and earth, spirit, and matter, day and night" (ibid.).

Obvious when you think about it.

By man's keeping himself open in the suspended center to movement toward the depths, his language is constantly enriched from heaven and earth.... [But] when the mystery of the ground of being fades, then the expressive power of words fades also. --Balthasar

44 Comments:

Balthasar shares the Raccoon principle that "the true image of God lies in the reciprocity of man and woman" ...

Furthermore, the mad gardner assures us that the piles have no intrinsic meaning, but rather, are just masks for power.

I'm reminded of another long-gone troll, who maintained that marriages are actually power struggles - as in, the power struggle is the purpose of the relationship, and not merely a side effect that happens when things aren't right. Sadly, a great many people live their marriages in exactly this way, as a battleground with occasional truces instead of as a partnership and an opportunity for communion.

Great idea: bitter liberal victims should be able to sell their citizenship to eager buyers around the world who would love to take advantage of living here. It's a win-win-win! (We win too by getting rid of these losers.)

Oh, good grief. It sounds to me like her boys are old enough to deal with the fallout, and probably the only one who really cares one way or the other about their toenails is her.

On Ace's sidebar, there's a link to a horrific tale out of Iraq - the true rape culture, the true war on women. I have yet to hear anybody on the left discuss the plight of the Christians and Yazidis over there at all; they're too busy ensuring that drunk sorority girls can claim victim status if they decide belatedly that they weren't that into the latest drunk frat boy they decided to swap fluids with.

No, America must burn for her sins, and the rest of the world will burn right along with us.

Yes, that too. Feminism is nothing so much as an attempt to destroy what is rightly feminine, and replace it with a neutered masculinity that manages to have none of the positive traits of either gender.

Which is why it is not good for boys to act like girls. Just because the average person cannot articulate the reasons why it is harmful, it hardly means they aren't "gender conscious," or whatever odious term the left uses (that Post writer's moral preening is nauseating). Really, it's the same principle as in this blast at Happy Acres, about how in the modern world "All differences vanish. In a mass-media world, there’s less of everything except the top ten books, records, movies, ideas. People worry about losing species diversity in the rain forest. But what about intellectual diversity - our most necessary resource? "

So if they really want to slow human progress, progressives should by all means continue to efface sexual differences. Among other consequences, there will be no men left to fight for a culture no longer worth saving.

As to the boys, their mother, and the nails, I feel I should clarify on this one, even realizing we may not see eye-to-eye. I think their mother is a complete nitwit, as much for singling her kids out online and marking herself as "gender-conscious" as anything else.

If her sons were asking for pretty pink flowers and sparkles, I would be dead set against that. Or makeup, or anything intended to make someone look girly. But I'm not bothered by their wanting to color their toenails to look like sports cars or team colors; in spite of the medium, it strikes me as a very masculine expression, and not terribly different from wanting a logo shaved in their hair or face paint on game day. If it were my kid, I'd probably roll my eyes, allow it once so they get it out of their system, and move on. Not without some unsubtle digs about it being girly, but still. Assuming I'm encouraging their masculine development and expression in all the ways that matter, this one just doesn't seem like that big of a deal.

Of course, when there's a mom who's determined to show how gender neutral she can be, then maybe it becomes a whole 'nother issue....

I am kind of confused by Michael Hannon's essay -- as I usually am by things at First Things.

I'm not a Greek or Hebrew scholar, but from my reading, even back in Leviticus, men were not to wear women's clothes and vice versa, because that might lead to, shall we say, misunderstandings. That would indicate that there were men who were "effeminate" -- something Paul condemns in the NT. Also, in Romans chapter 1, it says, "... males left off natural intercourse with females and were inflamed with lust for one another. Males committed shameless acts with males ...".

Yes, that's sodomy, but it's also homosexuality.

I think his argument is meant to point out that heterosexuality can be sinful outside of the sacrament of holy matrimony. Well, sure, but that doesn't mean there aren't and haven't always been a bunch of deviants out there.

And, yes, you can control yourself and be chaste no matter what you are attracted to.

Maybe I just need to read the whole thing again when I have more time.

"If we do not wish to be swept away with modernity’s orientation essentialists, then we need to remind the world that our sexual ethics was never really at home in the modern framework anyway, and thus that our forsaking the framework need not lead to postmodern nihilistic libertinism. There is firmer ground to stand on in the classical Christian tradition. Indeed, it seems to me the only place left to stand.

The Bible never called homosexuality an abomination. Nor could it have, for as we have seen, Leviticus predates any conception of sexual orientation by a couple of millennia at least. What the Scriptures condemn is sodomy, regardless of who commits it or why."

Or more to the point, sexuality has a very specific place: within marriage, between a man and a woman. Christians are called to control their sexual impulses in any and every other kind of relationship.

I saw a headline a couple of weeks ago about some rabbi, married with kids, who has decided to come out as gay. He's getting divorced, but his wife and family are supposedly very supportive, along with (of course) his congregation, his friends, etc. The thing is, what he's really saying is that he's come out as someone who really, really wants to play with other men's weiners. His "identity" as a human being will be incomplete if he does not have this experience. He wants to commit adultery with other men, without having to lie to his wife about it. And he'd like to know that the world approves.

Having lived as he ought, he would now prefer to live as he oughtn't. Per Hannon's article, classification of "gay" or "straight" isn't necessary to the conversation; if anything, it makes it more permissible for him to do what he should not, in essence giving him an "out" by designating him as a sort of exception to the rule.

Yes, something about it struck me as wrongheaded, although I didn't finish it yet. I did a quick google search for comments on it, and this one came up. Just skimmed the beginning, but he expresses some of my concerns.

I share the Jewish idea that sexual differences are God-given and critical to human well-being: "man and woman he created them."

"Having lived as he ought, he would now prefer to live as he oughtn't. Per Hannon's article, classification of "gay" or "straight" isn't necessary to the conversation; if anything, it makes it more permissible for him to do what he should not, in essence giving him an "out" by designating him as a sort of exception to the rule."

I can see that point, since he broke his marriage vows. Hardly something to be proud of.

Ben - exactly. If he had come to the mic to announce that he wanted to canoodle with women who are not his wife, because he just wasn't born monogamous, people would rightly condemn his behavior. Perhaps especially because he's a rabbi and so is (in theory) called to an even higher standard. Instead, he wants to canoodle with men (presumably; if he's planning on being celibately gay, why bother with the divorce and the announcement?), and suddenly everyone is very sympathetic and understanding, and they celebrate his divorce as the "courageous" thing to do.

However, I do concur with the author of Bob's link, Lydia, that deconstructing heterosexuality is a bad thing to do and unnecessary for the First Things author to do in the first place.Postmodernism poisons everything it touches and at the very least, creates confusion rather than clarity.

Plus, homosexuality and heterosexuality is not symetrical in any sense of the word.

I didn't take it so much as a deconstruction of the "hetero" (even though he states it as such) as much as it was a call to eschew the defining of human sexuality with any regard to the act. I did have to read it undistracted because it certainly is a different point of view. My take away from it was, perhaps more because of the great number of "college gays" in this town, young intelligent kids in our own church are questioning their sexuality. One such has decided that she is gender-neutral. It is a way for her to cope with the tremendous peer-pressure one finds among the junior high school set. It's a reaction to bullying by other girls and insecurity about boys. They are rarely given a coherent way to speak of the number ONE issue at school: sex.

I need a way to talk to young people, and trust me, for all that we can know and quote the Bible, we need a way around the objections. I don't think Hannon's essay is a complete world of thought about human sexuality, but if we don't elevate marriage and family as the picture of "on Earth, as it is in Heaven," then we'll continue to want to devalue the standard.

Jesus, with the woman at the well, found a way to speak with her about her hetero tendencies. He held up a standard to her: marriage. She quickly changed the subject from race to religion and He again, held up a standard. She had a right desire for God, but there was confusion there, too. Jesus oppressed her natural desires unapologetically.

Hannon may be an egghead about to enter a celibate life, but I think his attempt, inasmuch as he will be called upon in his role as a priest to address human sexuality, is with that in mind: to set a standard for human relationships is a "first thing" from which we can compassionately address all the other angsts about love, attraction, identity and a host of other psychological exposure that leaves us vulnerable to false comforts.

In Spirit and Truth is our worship. "In Heaven they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are as the angels."

I'll give you that Hannon is way too abstract for a concrete head like myself.

But after I slept, I could see a way where he could make sense. Consider pre-Christian Greek culture where pederasty was common and male relationships were often sexual. Wives were for procreation. Sodomy allowed virtually unlimited sexual expression whether with courtesans or in homosexual activities. The problem in that culture was not homosexuality per se, but what the Jews and Christians would think of as UNSANCTIFIED sex.

In a situation like that, I can see Hannon's point, sort of.

We certainly have, with convenient, reliable birth control, plenty of opportunity for unsanctified sex, and, I suppose, if you wanted to, you could call any non-procreative sex sodomy. I don't think that's right. I think what you do within the sacred marriage bed is generally sanctified -- without getting all clinical and gross.

The whole identity thing, though, is on the wrong side. No normal person identifies as heterosexual. We have been forced to set up a sort of Great Wall of heterosexuality against the screaming hordes of gay pride marchers in feather boas with sparklers up their butts.

That's only because we are dealing with people who have sexual deviations that can no longer be called deviations. We have people trying to use the arguments against racism to justify self-mutilation and pedophilia.

Yes, we need to understand God's purpose for sex; we need to understand its proper role within the sacrament of marriage; we need, as Christians, to do a better job rejecting the cultural definitions and norms for sexuality. The dynamics of the problem in New Testament times were different, but they, too, had to deal with a hostile culture.

I doubt that changing the terminology is going to make all that much difference.

I go back to his subtitle's emphasis on "witness." You and I are not confused (mostly!) about human sexuality, but Jesus was rather unconventional in his approach because he was speaking to a "postmodern" Roman world and the Jews living within it. He rocked their world, pulled them off-center in their thinking and proposed theologically radical concepts of who God is, namely Himself.

He was, and is, outrageous in His pursuit of us and will employ any Word of creative effort to wake us up and make us think. Or to rebuff us and make us ashamed to go on unthinking any longer.

I started out liking much of what McGrew began with, but she lost me in her adamant style within the comments. She really, really, really wants to see some sort of pernicious deconstruction of human sexuality in the words of a man who is speaking transcendently miles above her head.

I think it entirely worthwhile to consider as ultimately serious the thoughts of a man about to take vows of celibacy. It's not an encyclical on human sexuality, but it is something he will be asked about repeatedly in his lifetime. He is carefully considering his choice and his witness. It bears a second look in that light.

Hannan's argument makes it more difficult to celebrate male+female sexuality at the center of the human family. I believe this is unhelpful.

I'm guessing his essay comes out of his discomfort with our current cultural situation in which the LGBT view of sexuality has become more and more dominant in both culture and law. Hannan thinks that changing the terms of the conversation will enable Christians to avoid becoming targeted or obsolete.

I'm not sure that's possible. America is turning into a more aggressive version of pagan Corinth, whether we like it or not. I see no signs of it ever stopping in my lifetime. Frankly, I don't feel myself called to stop that tide, just to survive it with body and soul intact.

My kids have lots of friends who come from broken families. When they come to sleep over at our house, you can see something on their faces that hurts the heart. I'm not holding my marriage and family up as any kind of ideal. We've had our fair share of problems. But our kids know they have ground under their feet. They see mom and dad working out difficult things together and so transcending (with God's help) their selfishness.

Our daughter sees both a husband and a wife together. Our sons see both a husband and wife together. Our very imperfections are the means to achieving greater love and fidelity. Nobody has ever persuaded me, or will ever persuade me, that female+female, male+male, or any other permutation of couple-hood, would be anything other than a diminution of the whole.

Lately the boy and I have been watching the program "Everybody Hates Chris" from the earliest episodes. It's about Chris Rock's experience growing up in poor Bed-Stuy with one of the only intact families in the neighborhood. Both honest and funny. But in any event, man-woman is the very unit of civilization. It can't be mother-infant because that's a biological category. If women don't civilize men -- including male sexuality -- it won't be civilized.

What Hannon is so eloquently explaining to us it that human beings are not predominantly and primarily sexual beings. That the progressives of the 19th century hijacked the language of identity and via people like Freud have convinced us that chastity and marriage are cruel chains of bondage preventing the individual from his/her/etc right to flourish as a human being - which is, of course, a lie.

"So words, if they are not rooted in vertical reality, are indeed like the light of dead stars. Balthasar writes that "Man and his language can certainly 'abstract,' but only as the tree draws its sap up from the earth." Thus, "every spreading of the upper leaves requires a deeper taking root below, otherwise the top breaks" and "everything has to start growing again from below."

Or above rather, since this must be that Upanishadic tree we hear so much about, its roots aloft, its convenient local branches down below. But without that nonlocal tree, what are words, really? Just piles of dead and fallen leaves swept into temporary piles by your crazy deconstructionist gardner."

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Who spirals down the celestial firepole on wings of slack, seizes the wheel of the cosmic bus, and embarks upin a bewilderness adventure of higher nondoodling? Who, haloed be his gnome, loiters on the threshold of the transdimensional doorway, looking for handouts from Petey? Who, with his doppelgägster and testy snideprick, Cousin Dupree, wields the pliers and blowtorch of fine insultainment for the ridicure of assouls? Who is the gentleman loaffeur who yoinks the sword from the stoned philosopher and shoves it in the breadbasket of metaphysical ignorance and tenure? Whose New Testavus for the Restavus blows the locked doors of the empyrean off their rusty old hinges and sheds a beam of intense darkness on the world enigma? Who is the Biggest Fakir of the Vertical Church of God Knows What, channeling the roaring torrent of 〇 into the feeble stream of cyberspace? Who is the masked pandit who lobs the first water balloon out the motel window at the annual Raccoon convention? Who is your nonlocal partner in disorganized crimethink? Shut your mouth! But I'm talkin' about bʘb! Then we can dig it!